Revisting my Network and NAS Rack
09/04/2024
A few weeks after setting up my NAS/USB drives a second Seagate NAS drive failed. My investigations found that it was only the USB port on the NAS that stopped working and the USB drive was working OK. To quickly (or so I thought) get the drive up and running I thought I'd simply use a Raspberry Pi and add a USB share. I had bought a Raspberry Pi 5 at its launch but found I couldn't use it as the new OS wasn't compatible with some the software I was using so I thought this would be the perfect job for it..a simple share on a full speed USB 3 port.
It wasn't to be, the new OS doesn't recognise the USB drive. It sits there with the Mount job indefinitely pending so I changed to a Raspberry Pi4 which worked straight away. The only down side is the USB port on the Pi4 is a bit slower. Still it works and that is the main thing. I guess within the next year or so the Pi5 will be usable.
Something I hadn't got round to was fitting my POE+ switch in to the rack. The problem I had was I couldn't find a suitable 1U panel. My search led me to finding the perfect 3D model/stl files, it came three parts, left, centre and right that you can mix and match and has the correct aperture size for my TP-Link switch. I was finally put off this due to printing costs, £38 including postage for the three parts so back to the drawing board.
I eventually ordered another 1U tray (£10-15), this time with an array of pre drilled holes which I thought some would align with the mounting holes on the switch.
None of the holes lined up so I drill a couple to the right side then mounted the switch and its PSU.
Time now to fit it in the cubicle and plug in the power and the network cable.
Job done.